DREAMS, DEATH AND SPIRITUALITY

End-of-life experiences are of interest, both to the general public and to health professionals, because they help establish the importance of preparing for death. These phenomena have been described and categorised in several ways and are well documented, having been observed in different cultures throughout history.

People who are approaching the end of life often experience increasingly vivid and intense dreams. This observation is consistent with the idea that dreams and visions are intrinsic to the transition from life to death. Most research indicates that these experiences occur in close proximity to death, within an interval of hours, days, weeks or even months before it comes. Their content is variable, often involving previously deceased relatives and pets. They can be visual, auditory, and/or kinæsthetic experiences, with visions occurring during waking hours or in dreams. They may also contain references to travel, a sign of closeness to death.

Published studies of these experiences are based mainly on surveys or interviews with doctors or families of deceased persons. An inductive analysis in order to examine their content and subjective meaning has identified at least six categories: positive presences, preparations for farewell, seeing or communicating with the deceased, contacting waiting loved ones, stressful experiences, and resolving issues.

Nurses often hear about dreams based on these experiences. One nurse spoke of a resident in a nursing home whose dreams were an indicator of imminent death. “He said that he saw the animals he had had throughout his life… He felt that they were waiting for him.” The resident died that same week. Another nurse spoke of a patient’s son who woke her in the middle of the night to tell her he had dreamt that his mother was dying. He arrived at the nursing home at 4am and sat next to his mother until she died at 7 o’clock that morning. Without that dream, he would not have been present at the time of his mother’s death.

IT SEEMS CLEAR THAT DREAMS AND VISIONS CAN BE SPIRITUALLY TRANSFORMATIVE

One nurse described a strange dream she had had of a resident whom she loved very much whose husband had died a year earlier; her health had deteriorated, and she was no longer able to